


Swore I Could Feel You (Through The Walls)

by writeyourheart



Series: love you to the moon and to saturn [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Nightmares, Post S3, basically what i think could exist in s4, mike visiting el on spring break in cali
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:41:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29830626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeyourheart/pseuds/writeyourheart
Summary: She’s stuttering — there’s just so much to say, too many emotion to encompass with words. No dictionary could explain it; it was her own, like her powers, like the void — it wasn’t like what others faced.El has a nightmare — a vision. Mike helps her through it.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler
Series: love you to the moon and to saturn [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012812
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	Swore I Could Feel You (Through The Walls)

**Author's Note:**

> for the eras group chat.

_What she always notices first is how the walls are coated in blood. Dried, crusted blood that seep into the cracks of the concrete walls. Then, like usual, it’s the light above her that flickers dimly and golden against the cold, solid flooring of the hallway — everything is dim here, always._

_There are no windows, and no natural light can ever indicate whether or not it’s night or day. All El can ever think of when she’s here is how maddening it feels to be encompassed by nothing but dimness. It’s like her room at the lab — but at least, back then, she’d know what morning was, or evening, or night — everything here felt like it bled together, like time ceased within the flickered lights and blood-coated walls._

_She finds herself walking soon after she notices where she is, cold, bare feet wandering aimlessly through the hallway. It’s eerily quiet; the hum of the flickering light above her is barely audible alongside the sound of her unsteady breathing._

_She’s dreamt of this place a dozen times now, she knows what’s coming, and yet still, every time her breathing quickens like she doesn’t._

_She knows how the hallway’s walls seem to narrow down as she wanders further downward — as her feet lead her towards the large, rusted metal door at the very end of it._

_When her shaking hand reaches out for the doorknob, she hears herself gasp at the coldness of it within her palm; it feels so real, so tactile, so intense for something that’s solely meant to be a dream — no other dream has felt like this._

_Like every other time, she doesn’t manage to brace herself for what’s next. Her wrist twisting the knob without her minds consent, the way the door slams open, the way what’s inside of the room is always somehow so, so much worse than the dim, disorienting hallway._

_It’s Hopper, and he’s alive. His face is littered with cuts and bruises, and he’s wearing some sort of green, battered jumpsuit caked in blood. He’s hooked to a chair, like he always is, with wiring around his head like Mama — his wrists and ankles are tied down, and there’s no one in there but him and his screams._

_What’s worse is the way he stares at her so desperately — so emptily, and all she can do is stay frozen, like she’s being tied down too, by some invisible force; some omniscient barrier between her and him and every bad thing in the world. She starts screaming, too, eventually, calling out for him and reaching towards him but not quite managing to move at all. Her lungs feel tired, but she can’t give up, because it’s Hopper and he’s alive, but she’s not sure how much longer he will be if she just stands here and does nothing._

_When she tries to force her mind to do something, quickly and desperately, as instinctive as it has become for her, she cries out harder when she remembers that her mind can’t do **that** anymore — she’s powerless, and she feels as tied down as Hopper is, and she’s so, so sure that she’s dying, too; that she can’t safe herself as much as she can’t save him._

_He’s about to speak now, from within the blood-coated, concrete walls of the tiny room he’s in — she can feel the way her ears perk up, like she’s reaching so hard for his voice — for something that isn’t a guttural, agonizing scream. But then, just like every other time, the lights begin to flicker aimlessly, endlessly, blindingly, and suddenly she’s awake with a —_

Gasp. She’s gasping, and it’s dark, and her shirt is clinging to her body with sweat, and for a second, she can barely register that she’s even alive.

She’s got a hand pressed against her heart, and it’s numb and clammy but it’s gratifying, the way she can feel herself throb from underneath her palm. Her other hand, she realizes only seconds later, is clutching another hand.

Her fingers tightly squeezing against knuckles that are pressed against her shoulder, and she’s suddenly aware of the steadiness that radiates there; the feel of another body sitting up next to her. Eventually, the breathing fades, and the white noise that consumes her senses dies down, and she can hear Mike’s voice like he’s emerging from a very long and deep tunnel, even if she knows he’s right next to her.

_(it’s okay, el, it’s okay, you’re okay, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe breathe breathebreathebreathe)_

She exhales, finally, long and hard, sighing and swaying until Mike guides her into his arms, her lips suddenly pressed against his cool, gentle skin, her chin atop the sternness of his collarbone.

She can hear him properly now, with her body calm and pressed against him. Though the world seems numb, she can feel how one of his arms stays looped around her waist, the other against the nape of her neck, burrowed under her hair. He’s speaking against the crown of her head she realizes, occasionally pressing kisses between words.

“S’okay, El, it was just a bad dream.” Kiss. “I’m here, you’re at home, you’re okay.” Kiss. “It’s just me and you, it’s just us, you’re safe.” Kiss.

One of her hands come up to squeeze at the fabric of his shirt. She feels his palm tighten at the back of her neck, thumb stroking indecipherable patterns upon the skin there. “Do you hear me?”

She doesn’t like the way it sounds; desperate and fearful, like he doesn’t know if he’s helping, like he’s afraid that she’s stuck somewhere inside her head that he can’t quite reach. Forcing her throat to clear up, she speaks, low and timid. Her voice is hoarse and raw, and she nearly scares herself when it escapes her like a wavering sob, “ _Yes_.”

Mike’s hold on her tightens very suddenly, and she quickly finds herself crying against him, shoulders shaking as he lies back down against the pillows with her tucked against him. Their legs twine together, and his hands seem to be everywhere at once; up and down her arms, trailing patterns on her back, fingers folding through her hair.

Besides the shakiness of her crying, she barely moves against him, buzzing within his arms as he tries to ground her; she tries not to close her eyes, because all she can see is that blood-coated hallway, and Hop’s screaming figured tied down, and her own bare feet pressed against the floor as she can’t force herself to do anything useful.

“I’m sorry,” she finds herself murmuring erratically against Mike’s neck. “’M so sorry.”

“No, no, no, don’t be, it’s okay, it’s okay El, it was just a dream, it was a nightmare….” He doesn’t stop speaking as she loses herself against him, trying to focus on how his hands move, how real and solid he is within her arms, how tightly her knuckles squeeze at the cotton of his shirt.

She’s not sure how much time passes until she speaks again — how minutes, how many hours she’d stayed pressed up against Mike, listening to him murmur against her, stroking her hair, drawing against her back. A wave of guilt hits her suddenly, when she feels sober enough to really, really realize where she is — when the vivid image of Hopper and the hallway fade out into the back of her mind.

Mike’s here for spring break; they’re meant to be having fun, meant to be resting so they can go to the beach tomorrow. She twists herself away from Mike’s arms for a second, glancing behind her shoulder to stare at the gleaming green of the alarm clock on her bedside table; 3:21 AM, it reads.

“We’ve still got a few hours to sleep,” she hears him whisper. “But if you can’t sleep, then that’s totally fine, too, y’know. We can just stay like this and maybe nap in the car later, while Jonathan drives.”

El folds herself back into him, legs looping together, his hand reaching for her cheek. “I’ll try,” she murmurs. “To sleep.”

She’s tired, but she’s not entirely sure that she _wants_ to sleep again. This nightmare has been plaguing her for weeks now, and every night is like some sort of test — a game of whether or not the hallway would find her, hold her hostage until she woke up in cold sweat, Hopper’s screams still fresh within her mind.

Mike’s fingers thread through her hair. There’s a moment of silence; the breeze from the open window calming her down from the heat of her nightmare, the moonlight spilling into the room grounding her to _now_ and _here_ and _Mike._

“D’you want to talk about it?”

El’s arm tightens around his waist. She does, but she doesn’t know how to start, how to explain how real it all feels, how it’s the only dream that can leave her so numb and afraid, almost as bad as the nightmares from the lab. The only difference is how fresh this one is, how it’s repetitive, how it’s somewhere she’s never been, how it’s so disorienting and real.

She must’ve been quiet for too long, because suddenly his grip around her tightening, like he’s trying to awaken her from another bad dream. “Hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to — I just — I figured, maybe, it would help….” He trails off at the end like he’s unsure, and his voice sounds the way it does when he’s afraid saying something wrong.

El kisses his jaw before nudging her nose against him, trying to tell him without words that he’s okay, too, that she’s here just as much as he is.

“It’s a…. It’s a _weird_ dream,” she settles on.

“Weird how?”

“I…I don’t know how to explain it right.”

Mike squeezes her to him tighter, a finger reaching up to press at her forehead, right where her brows furrow. She can feel herself soften at his touch; she hadn’t been realizing how tightened up her face had been until he’d pointed it out.

“That’s okay,” he whispers, “Just take your time.”

She sighs, closing her eyes to get it all as right as she can. “There’s a hallway…And there’s no sunlight, or daylight, or anything — Just, a lamp, on the ceiling, and it turns on and off really fast.”

Mike nods against her head, urging her to keep going.

“And it’s cold, and there’s blood…. _everywhere_ ,” she swallows thickly. “And I walk, and walk, and walk until… a door.”

“Did you open it?” Mike asked, palm against her cheek, grounding her.

“Yes, but not _me_. Like someone forced me to.”

“Okay, and what’s behind the door?” He asks, patiently, gently.

She frowns, muffling a whimper before carrying on. “Hop.”

Mike hums against her hair, like he was expecting it, and El starts to wonder if she’d been screaming out loud, too, not just in her dreams.

“He was on a chair, with — with wires on him. He was screaming — he’s always screaming,” she murmurs.

“What do you mean always?” Mike asks gently, tilting her chin up with his fingers to get her to look at him. It’s the first time she’d really paid attention his face since the nightmare; everything was blurry before. But now, she can see him. His face is flushed and darkened by the lack of light that filters into her room, but his eyes are steady against hers, inquisitive and careful, and she remembers suddenly why it’s so hard to be away for so long; why she feels like she needs him so much she can’t breathe, sometimes.

“It’s not the first time,” she tells him. “It’s been weeks.”

“You’ve been having this dream for weeks?”

She nods, biting the inside of her cheek. “It feels so real,” she claims. “It’s not like other dreams….”

“El,” Mike sighs. He lowers himself gently, moving her off his chest so that he can sink to her level, then presses his forehead to hers. She closes her eyes, and she can feel how his lashes flutter against her closed lids. “It’s just…It’s because you miss him. Grief does that — it makes you see things, and dream things.”

“But,” she’s stuttering — there’s just so much to say, too many emotion to encompass with words. No dictionary could explain it; it was her own, like her powers, like the void — it wasn’t like what others faced. “It’s always the same, and it feels so cold, like I’m _there_.”

Mike reaches out for her hand, clawing into the darkness before he finds her fingers and pulls them to his chest. “When you were gone — the first time — I had dreams, too.”

El squeezes his palm as he carries on. “They weren’t always all the same — but they came often, especially the first few months. And they felt real — like, so real I could hear your voice screaming in my head ‘till morning, and real enough where it felt like I could touch you, and you’d be warm. But then I’d wake up, and there was nothing….” He trails off, like he’d gone off track, like he was in his own head now, remembering.

“I’m sorry.” She nudges her nose against his.

“Wha—No, no, it’s not your fault,” he says, his hand dropping hers to stroke at her cheek.

“I know. Still sorry, though.” She opens her eyes to find him already staring at her, his eyes soft, and she offers him a gentle, tiny smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. He offers one back.

“Mike,” she says. “What if it’s not a dream?” She knows what that’s supposed to mean, and she knows he understands, too. _What if Hopper’s still out there, what if he’s still alive, what if he’s just hurt, and somewhere far; what if her dream is real, and he really is screaming, over and over for her to help him._

He swallows, not speaking for a handful of seconds until he knows what’s right; until he’s pieced together a part of the chaos within his mind. She’s afraid he might not believe her — that he’ll think she’s crazy, or simply grieving, or that she’s just gone _crazy_. Instead, he simply shrugs, finally. “Then we’ll figure it out together, okay?”

“Okay,” El nods, rocking both their heads in the process.

“You’ve gotta promise to tell me when you have this dream again,” he says. “Even when I go back to Hawkin’s, you just — you call me, that’s all, even in the middle of the night if you need to, but you just have to tell me so that —”

“I promise,” she tells him, reaching out to press a palm against his own cheek, mirroring his movements.

“Okay, I promise, too.” She doesn’t quite know what he’s promising — to help her, maybe — to be there for her — but it doesn’t matter either way, she already knows he will.

They’re silent again, and El can finally fully feel the world click back into place for a moment; she’s with Mike, and he’s running a hand through her hair, and their legs are tangled together, and there’s hope of something good maybe, and she thinks that she can sleep again, the way she would before.

She leans forward a bit to kiss him softly, their lips brushing gently — there’s only one left thing left before she knows she can finally allow for sleep to find her.

“I love you,” she whispers, and though it’s gentle within the quiet, stillness of her room, it felt so loud falling from her mouth.

He kisses her then, and she can feel him smiling against her. “I love you, too.”

When she wakes the next morning, the sun seems brighter than it’d been in months.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! i plan on writing more of them soon — canon-compliant is always fun to work with.


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